An Old Urban Legend: Confused by the Copernican Cliche

BreakPoint ^ | 9 September 03 | Chuck Colson

[Mr. Silverback]

Will do!

It is mighty strange (apologies that some of the following is off-topic) how the folks who call for a more humble foreign policy refuse to eat their crow and how they constantly act like they are the saviors of all mankind who would solve everything if Americans would just get with the program. It is mighty strange how so many of those who think we're just random mutations riding on a speck can think themselves so big and important, and similarly see themselves as the saviors of the species.

[Mr. Silverback]

BreakPoint/Chuck Colson Ping!

If anyone wants on or off my BreakPoint Ping List, please notify me here or by freepmail.

[wideawake]

Thanks for the interesting post.

Few modernists realize that in medieval cosmology the center was as far from Heaven as possible - which is why medievals like Dante placed Hell in the center of the Earth.

[FourPeas]

Interesting. For more information on Danielson's paper see here.

[Mr. Silverback]

That's really interesting, I never came across that concept before. Makes sense that the center would be the furthest (under pre-Copernicus cosmology).

Boy, I've really missed out on the Classics. When i think of all the crap I learned in High School, it's a wonder I can think at all. ;-)

[Age of Reason]

I would say that what-goes-around-what depends on how you look at it.

One might still say that everything else moves relative to a stationary earth.

[Orion78]

Bouvier de Fontenelle wrote satirically that Copernicus had "humbled the vanity of mankind,"..

The French surrender once again.

[Restorer]

Size and location is utterly unrelated to importance. Is Jupiter "more important" than Earth? The whole argument is just silly.

[KayEyeDoubleDee]

Call me a skeptic, but this article comes from a site whiose stated mission "is to develop and communicate Christian worldview messages that offer a critique of contemporary culture and encourage and equip the church to think and live Christianly." The two other commentaries concern "the case against evolution" and Harry Potter.

This is not to say that there couldn't be some merit to this guy's theory, but let's not jump the gun here, either.

[Pete]

If you would like to read a great book that elaborates on this topic, I suggest C.S. Lewis' "An Image Discarded". He used it in the classes he taught on mideval literature. It is a description and discussion of the mideval 'model' of the universe.

[Dark Knight]

You can still use the earth as the center of the universe, IIRC didn't Einstein use that as a reference for relativity?

In classical mechanics though the Earth going round the Sun is not a truth. It is just more convenient for the math. A lot of people forget that.

DK

[eastsider]

In classical mechanics though the Earth going round the Sun is not a truth. It is just more convenient for the math.

Bingo! The only ancient who posited anything other than the earth as the center of the universe was Pythagoras, to whom Copernicus dedicated his De Revolutionibus Orbium Coelestium.

[Verginius Rufus]

Aristarchus of Samos (3rd century B.C.) believed that the earth revolves around the sun. Philolaus the Pythagorean (c. 470-390 B.C.) made the earth a planet and said that the earth orbits the central fire.

According to the Bible, Joshua made the sun stand still (Joshua 10.12-14, quoting from the lost Book of Jashar). Obviously the Copernican theory is wrong, because it conflicts with the Scriptures.

[weegee]

I saw some program on a history channel (maybe A&E or Discovery) that kept emphasizing that if it wasn't for Galileo, that we wouldn't know that the Earth revolves around the Sun.

I kept shouting at the tv, what about Copernicus? My friend who was watching picked up one of his encyclopedias and saw that Galileo worked from Copernicus' text.

The gist of the "documentary" (which had some historical recreations without dialogue) was that Galileo challenged the Church (practically giving them the finger).

I got tired of the hyperbolic presentation of such documentaries and never watch them (but ocassionally I'll see them on when I'm at some friend's who thinks he's watching educational tv).

[Lonesome in Massachussets]

didn't Einstein use that as a reference for relativity?

Actually, the centrifugal force associated with the Sun rotating around the Earth would be HUGH! Even Einstein can't help you here. Newton had the Earth and Sun rotating around their common center of Gravity.

Kostler gives more or less the same view as this author.

Koestler also claims that the Galileo's "Dialogues Concerning Two Sciences" was bad astronomy and bad physics. For instance, he explained the tides are resulting from the Earth's rotation, rather than - as Kepler urgently suggested - the effect of the Moon's gravity. Galileo's contribution was in the inventing the science of dynamics.

Ptolemic astronomy worked as well or better than Coperican for predicting the positions of the planets and was simplier to apply. It also fulfilled the intuitive need for a mechanism - the nested crystalline spheres - to carry the planets along. Until Tycho's painstaking observations, no one had any better model for planetary motion consistent with observations.

Kepler was captivated by the smoother trajectories that the Copernican model afforded. Ptolemic trajectories superimposed the Earth's orbit on top of the orbits of the planets, causing a funny spiral trajectory, compared to the oval shapes resulting from Copernius' epicycles. When Kepler attempted to fit Tycho's observations of Mars to the Copernican model, he found they would not comply and hit upon the ellipse.

Newton's Laws perfectly explain Kepler's orbits and a great number of other things as well. (Such as tides and the precession of the equinox.)

It wasn't until Maxwell invented electrodynamics, that inconsistencies between E/M and mechanics lead to relativity. (The precession of the perihelion of Mercury had been noticed prior to the theory of relativity, but did not lead to it. Rather, it is one of the three classical tests of General Relativity. The other were only observed afterwards: Gravitational red shift and Deflection of starlight during an eclipse.)

[=Intervention=]

That is a use of phenominal language. Next?

[Age of Reason]

In classical mechanics though the Earth going round the Sun is not a truth. It is just more convenient for the math. A lot of people forget that.

I seem to remember that in the forward to Copernicus's book, he says just that (I believe the experts are still debating whether he meant it to deflect criticism from Rome).

[Dark Knight]

You are making my head ache trying to remember my 20 year back physics...
"Actually, the centrifugal force associated with the Sun rotating around the Earth would be HUGH! Even Einstein can't help you here. Newton had the Earth and Sun rotating around their common center of Gravity. "

Wasn't centrifugal force a frame of reference, and centripetal (sp) the frameless version?

Please don't make me remember my chemistry though, just asking for a favor?

DK

Hey, wanna come to the music sharing thread...it's just over here...
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/978863/posts

[Lonesome in Massachussets]

centrifugal force noun
The component of apparent force on a body in curvilinear motion, as observed from that body, that is directed away from the center of curvature or axis of rotation.

centripetal force noun
The component of force acting on a body in curvilinear motion that is directed toward the center of curvature or axis of rotation.

The centripetal force is supplied by gravity. The centrifugal force by inertia, V x V/R and all that. Newton said they've got to balance.

[Dark Knight]

I reread your post and just wanted to try a bit different way of saying what I mean. A model is not truth. A model can help with predictability, or functionality of understanding but does not convey absolute truth. Models as human developed constructs attempt to help us explain reality, but should never be confused with reality itself.

Hence the model of an Earth centered cosmos is less useful than a solar one, it is not a truth based decision, merely the decision to use a more functional model. I suppose we could use the center of the milky way as a model but I really don't like that math either.

DK
I also think that is precisely where the EVO/CREAVO fights start. There, I did it. Do you think we can get this thread to 2000?